The number of users accessing online medical consultationplatforms has seen a “huge jump” during the nationwide lockdown postthe COVID-19 outbreak, even as a few patients have alleged that some doctorshave “hiked” their fees in this hour of crisis.
The volume of traffic has also grown significantly fromTier-2 and Tier-3 cities as the lockdown and fear of contracting infection iseven keeping regular patients away from hospitals.
Medical teleconsultancy start-up Practo shared that thevolume of users on its platform is rising by an “average of over 100 percent week-on-week” since March 1 and more than 50 per cent of all generalpractitioner e-consults were related to COVID-19.
Queries regarding fever, cough, cold, sore throat and bodyache have increased by 200 per cent. And most of the overall questions are frompeople in the age group of 25-40, it said.
“There has been a significant increase in the number ofpeople using online consultation, aged 60 and above. And close to 40 per centof all teleconsults on our platform are happening from tier-2 and tier-3cities,” co-founder & CEO, Practo, ShashankND, said.
The death toll due to the COVID-19 pandemic rose to 308 onMonday after 35 new fatalities were reported, while the number of cases climbedto 9,152, according to the Union Health Ministry.
While people are facing hardship in accessing medical careamid the ongoing lockdown that began on March 25, patients are either trying toaddress minor health issues by taking over the counter drugs from chemist shopsor calling doctors on phones.
A patient, who did not wish to be named, alleged that adoctor he was seeing earlier for consultation, had “doubled the fee”,more so in this hour of global health crisis.
A doctor who did not wish to be identified, said, mostmedics are tirelessly serving people during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Many are even giving free consultation over phone.Some may have even increased the fee but that is because they are seeing farless number of patients they would physically see otherwise.
“Also, these doctors if they are going at homes ofpatients, they have to take all protective measures like PPE (personalprotective equipment) kits so it is not fair to say the fee has been hiked toexploit the situation,” he said.
Rajan Sharma, the IMA president, said the Indian MedicalAssociation has “severe objections to telemedicine practice under the garbof providing treatment at home and we have expressed our reservations in thisregard to the government”.
“Since the government issued the telemedicine practiceguidelines, the IMA as a part of its policy has asked all members to providefree consultation to all their patients,” he said.
The IMA chief said it does not support “overcharging byanyone in such times of such distress”.
Those who are indulging in such acts should not do so whenthe entire country is going through such a crisis, Sharma said.
Secretary of Delhi Medical Council and president of DelhiMedical Association, Girish Tyagi, however, feels doctors must keeptransparency with patients when it comes to consultation in this hour ofcrisis.
“Doctors are also affected, their clinics have beenclosed for so long, and many doctors may have decided to do less consultationwith proper dedication than doing multiple ones in a hurry. Also, travelling tohouses of patients entails risks due to COVID-19 outbreak. But, I would saydoctors should tell patients the fees beforehand. And, patients should also askbeforehand, if there is a hike,” he told PTI.
Meanwhile, other online platforms like myUpchar, is alsoseeing rise in the number of users during lockdown.
Rajat Garg, co-founder of myUpchar, said the demand hasincreased threefold. “One thing that has also increased is that patientswith serious illnesses or in emergency conditions, are also coming online. Theywere not doing. Also, 10-15 per cent queries are related to patients trying tocheck if they have COVID-19,” he said.
Practo said other specialities that are seeing more than 100per cent growth in online queries by users are in the fields of psychiatry(mental health), pediatrics, gynaecology and dermatology.
The metro cities, where most of the queries are coming from,include, Bengaluru, Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, and Chennai, it said.
The non-metro cities from where most of the queries arecoming, include Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Bhubaneshwar and Indore.